EDITOR'S TABLE. 



4i3 



future working upon domestic life. The 

 industrial progress of mankind, as is 

 well known, lias been carried forward 

 by the division of labor, in which, 

 through greater proficiency of special- 

 ized work, improved machinery, and 

 efficient organization, the productive 

 capacities of society have been much 

 diversified and augmented. Dr. Black- 

 well's argument is that this great social 

 tendency has taken effect upon the do- 

 mestic sphere, and must take much fur- 

 ther effect by removing those forms of 

 domestic labor with which women have 

 been so long burdened, to the outside 

 sphere of business organization. She 

 maintains that woman must follow out 

 these industries into the outer field of 

 competition, or be left without the 

 means of subsistence; while, by thus 

 getting rid of all work hitherto called 

 domestic, she will achieve her libera- 

 tion from that home bondage of which 

 she has so long been the victim. The 

 social movement here referred to has 

 two effects the enlargement of exter- 

 nal competition for woman, and a cor- 

 responding diminution of the internal 

 sphere of home occupation. We must 

 very briefly object to Dr. Blackwell's 

 views upon both points. 



As to the industrial tendencies of 

 social evolution invoked by Dr. Black- 

 well, she seems to have left out the 

 most important, and, indeed, in this 

 case, an all-determining consideration. 

 While the common differentiations of 

 industry are a result of progress, that 

 between the sexes is not a result of 

 progress. The division of labor be- 

 tween the sexes is primordial older 

 and deeper than all social development, 

 and a fundamental condition to it. Any 

 one who will consult the comprehen- 

 sive " Cyclopaedia of Descriptive So- 

 ciology," by Herbert Spencer, and refer 

 to the operative division of his tabu- 

 lar summaries, will find superabundant 

 proofs that in the very lowest stages of 

 all savage societies there was a funda- 

 mental and universal separation in the 



active spheres of the sexes, so that "no 

 division of labor except that between 

 the sexes " becomes almost a stereo- 

 typed formula. Men devoted them- 

 selves to hunting, fishing, and war, 

 for the maintenance of the life of the 

 tribe, while women cooked the food, 

 made the clothes, took care of the chil- 

 dren, and occupied themselves chiefly 

 with the drudgeries of the rude home. 

 Thus, before industries began to take 

 any separate shape, there was already 

 a division of occupations so broad and 

 clear as to be evidently grounded in 

 the nature of things, and all the subse- 

 quent progress of mankind has been 

 achieved in subordination to it. The 

 first great specialization of human ac- 

 tivities is, therefore, not a product of 

 social evolution. We have here to 

 do with a fact of exceptional import^ 

 deeply grounded in the constitution of 

 things, and not to be studied as an ef- 

 fect of social progress. And in its es- 

 sential quality, moreover, this separa- 

 tion of the spheres of action of men 

 and women is totally different from the 

 ordinary differentiations of industry. 

 The historic relation of the sexes, in 

 regard to their distinctive spheres of 

 action, is a non-competitive relation. 

 The family arose not merely by a union 

 of the sexes in marriage, but by a union 

 of interests which made their respective 

 spheres of occupation supplementary to 

 each other. There is here no industrial 

 rivalry, but the common ambition cen- 

 ters in the prosperity of the home. 

 This is the fixed order observed equally 

 in all stages of progress. As men fished, 

 hunted, and fought in the pre-industrial 

 stages of society, while women were oc- 

 cupied with the domestic cares, so the 

 men still labor without, struggling with 

 their fellows in the arena of business, 

 and earning wealth which it is their 

 pleasure and pride to expend upon the 

 home and for the advantage of the fam- 

 ily, while wives and mothers co-operate 

 in the household sphere, contributing 

 their indispensable and co-equal share 



